Ex-Teammate of Brendan Gallagher Criticizes Him Over Recent Dirty Play

"I'm seeing this hit, and,

I know Brendan Gallagher's an ex teammate of mine, he's a guy that I played with, but I got to be consistent here. I saw Charlie McAvoy's hit earlier this year, and I said that he deserved five games. And I said, why he shouldn't put himself in that position. He's too valuable to his team. Well, in this case, there's so much going on around the New York Islanders.

I'm hiring Patrick Roy. We're back in Montreal. The game's three nothing and the Islanders put it on. It's a great game, everything is good. And then there's this play where it's not a hockey play, it's not a collision in the corner. It's not a battle for the puck. This is a guy skating the puck through the middle of the ice, and Gallagher throws his elbow right into his chin. Like, I don't know how else I'm supposed to call that, but to me, those are the hits that we just can't have. That's just inexcusable. There's no upside. Five minute major match penalty, intent to injure.

You're putting your team down whether these games matter. And it's just to see a game like this that's been so good to have something like that. Player safety can't be happy with that, so I got to distant, and I have to call it that way, no matter who it is.

And I don't want to see hits like this in the game. And player safety's got to step up."